No services are planned
for retired Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Charles H. Older, who died
Saturday night from complications from a fall in his West Los Angeles home, Older’s
former law partner, Edward Cazier, said yesterday.

Older was 88.

Cazier called Older “a
wonderful man and a fine judge.”

Older, who was appointed
to the bench by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan in 1967, presided over the 1971 trial
of Charles Manson, who was convicted of the murders of actress Sharon Tate and
others. The trial was chronicled in the book “Helter Skelter,” by Vincent Bugliosi,
the prosecutor in the case.

After the Manson trial,
Older jailed reporter Bill Farr for 46 days for contempt after Farr refused to
reveal his sources for a story about the trial. Farr wrote the story while
working at the Herald Examiner, but was temporarily not employed as a
journalist when Older had him arrested.

Farr’s jailing led to
the passage of a 1980 ballot measure which incorporated California’s reporters’
shield law into the state Constitution, protecting reporters’ rights to protect
their sources.

Farr’s arrest also
prompted two attorneys to run against Older when he came up for re-election.
Older won.

Older also once had an
attorney, then-Deputy Public Defender Richard Buckley, jailed for contempt for
refusing to turn over a privileged investigation report.

In a 1982 profile of
Older, the MetNews noted two sides to the judge’s personality. “Some know him
as a stern, no-nonsense judge. To others, he’s an affable socialite,” the
article said.

Another of his former
partners, Horace Hahn, said of Older at the time, “He makes a real distinction
between social life and work life. He’s very quiet in a work environment, very
open in a social environment.”

Hahn said Older “can maintain
his composure up to a point, but pushed beyond that point, he can very
difficult.”

Older graduated from
Beverly Hills High School in 1935, UCLA in 1939, and from USC Law School in
1952.

In between attending
undergraduate and law schools, he served as a pilot for the Flying Tigers, an
outfit hired by the Chinese nationalist government to chase out invading
Japanese pilots, and as a fighter pilot for the U.S. Army Air Corps in World
War II, and for the U.S. Air Force in the Korean War.

Older worked for the Los
Angeles firm Keatinge, Arnold &amp Zack from 1952 to 1954, and was a partner
in Keatinge &amp Older from 1954 to 1962, and in the firm Older, Hahn, Cazier
&amp
Hoegh from 1962 to 1968.